Software-Only Digital Picture Frame Released by Ricoh

Ricoh Company, Ltd. announced a desktop slideshow application for displaying pictures that are stored in its visual online service ‘quanp.’

Users store pictures permanently online with the ‘quanp’ service and can access them anywhere on the Internet. The application is installed locally and is especially good for displaying a regular stream of photos like vacations or family gatherings. The unobtrusive 200 pixel by 200 pixel display is built on the Adobe AIR platform, allows for extensive real-time commenting on photos, and has a highly customizable look-n-feel.

“Digital photo frames often cost several hundred dollars, you need to leave them plugged in all the time, and they store your photos in their own specialized software. Our slideshow application is a great way to permanently store your photos from recent vacations or family get-togethers and then easily display them without the extra hardware cost,” said Sho Harada, senior manager of ‘quanp.’ “You can set the quanp slideshow application to display photos every time you boot up. Install it on your mother’s machine, for example, and she can enjoy family photos every time she sits down at the computer.”

Ricoh Company, Ltd. announced private beta testing of their new visual online storage service ‘quanp’ in the summer of 2009. Users have been testing ‘quanp’’s innovative 3D visual search as an intuitive way to collect, store and share personal photos, videos and other files. ‘quanp’ continues to add ways to access these ‘digital life memories.’ Both a Windows client and a browser version of ‘quanp’ are available. Last year, ‘quanp’ also introduced a first Adobe AIR application called ‘quanp drop,’ an animated widget that sits on the desktop with easy automatic drag-and-drop uploading. The ‘quanp’ slideshow application announced today, like ‘quanp drop,’ follows quanp’s core ideas of collecting everything in one spot, making it easy to dig in and use your files, and even them dress up some for a little fun.

Features

• 200 pixel by 200 pixel display with Control Bar for easy stop-start, downloading, commenting, flagging.
• Real-time commenting, builds instant conversations around photos.
• Expandable limit on the number of photos stored, can display all or any combination of quanp Places (analogous to folders) within your account, can display multiple picture formats (.jpg .jpeg .png .bmp .gif).
• Highly configurable display with twenty different colorful frames and options for transitions, display order and timing.

The ‘quanp’ slideshow application requires Windows XP SP2 or higher, Windows Vista or Mac OS X 10.4.9 or higher and 10.5.1 or higher.  It also requires Adobe AIR 1.5 or higher.

To download the quanp slideshow application and testing it